Guardian Angel
by Taliatoennien
Summary: We all know that Marian came to usher Robin into the afterlife. However, Marian's first trip to Earth was about fifteen minutes before that. Spoilers for all of RH: The Series


SUMMARY: We all know that Marian came to usher Robin into the afterlife. However, Marian's first trip to Earth was about fifteen minutes before that.

DISCLAIMER: I do not own _Robin Hood_ or any of the characters, and I'm not making any money from this story. Also I stole the angel's name from the book "Deadline" by Randy Alcorn, since I can't come up with any angel names on my own.

WARNING: Spoilers for the entire series. Unashamedly sappy. Guy/Marian romance and lots of it. Warning also for physical torture – while not terribly graphic, the story details the process by which Lambert ended up in the state he was in before his death.

A/N: This story came directly out of the "Adopt a Plot Bunny" thread on the _Robin Hood_ community board, where LadyKate expressed an interest (just a mild interest, of course) in seeing Marian take Guy through Purgatory. I think it'll be fairly obvious that I'm Catholic. I'd like to note as well that this story is accurate according to my interpretation/visualization of what Purgatory is actually like. How much of that is official Catholic doctrine, and how much my personal interpretation, I will leave up to the reader. I'm rusty enough on my church history that I don't know whether the Church had invented the word "Purgatory" or not by the time period of _Robin Hood_, but even if the word existed, I don't think God and angels actually _call_ it Purgatory (that word is just our convention for this life), so I deliberately haven't used it in the body of the story.

My undying beta thanks and story dedication go to the brilliant (and obsessive) LadyKate. I hope you will consider your plot bunny to have found a good home.

Guardian Angel

by Alicia

Guy of Gisborne considered his entire life to be adequately summarized by three words: "I die proud." It was true. He forced his mind away from his memories, forced himself not to see Vaisey, forced himself not to relive his crimes. Ordinarily he'd have thought of Marian, but not only was she also part of the movie of Guy's years in Vaisey's employment, but Guy had just told Robin that Marian had always been Robin's. Guy had accepted that part of the truth as well. So he died alone. But he died proud.

After what seemed like a long period of time in utter darkness, Guy thought something should have happened by this point. Was he still alive? He opened his eyes. Marian's features swam into view, more lovely than Guy had ever remembered her. He shut his eyes again. Then, cautiously, willing himself not to dream of Marian nor to think of anything remotely connected to Vaisey, Guy let his eyes open again.

Marian was still there, but she was frowning at him. "Aren't you glad to see me?" She held out her hand to help Guy to his feet.

Guy only vaguely noticed that his wounds did not hurt as he rose. "You're not here, can't dream…" he muttered. It didn't sound quite like Guy's own voice. It was higher, somehow, lighter.

Marian reached out one small hand and turned Guy's face to hers. Her flowy white sleeve brushed Guy's shoulder. Marian stood on her toes and kissed Guy.

The kiss was tender and slow, but not long. Guy felt no heat, no passion. He felt the way he'd felt when he first began to kiss girls when he was only thirteen. At the time he'd thought he had been shamefully immature, he'd longed for the excitement of adulthood. Now he realized the closeness that had been buried by his lust for Marian. There was no lust now, and he felt closer to her than he ever had in life.

"You are glad to see me now?" Marian said. Her eyes drifted down, away.

"Aren't I dead? I told Robin that you were his. I shouldn't be dreaming of you. Fever dream, that's what this is."

"Look behind us."

Guy turned around. He was still lying there on the cold stone where he'd been. People stormed through the passage on either side of Guy and Marian, but their feet made no sound. Everything was silent except for the sound of Marian's voice.

Marian held out her hand. The meaning was clear: come with me.

"You're not taking me to hell, are you?" Guy said. It would be just the kind of cruel joke he had always imagined that he'd play on unsuspecting peasants if he were God.

She laughed. "No, of course not. Now do you want to stand here forever? We can, you know. Stand here forever. But that would be boring."

"Robin will need you. He's been poisoned."

A flicker of something very like grief passed across Marian's features.

How could she grieve, now that she was an angel?

"Yes," Marian said. "I know."

"None of this makes any sense," Guy said.

Marian laughed again. She seemed so much more vibrant than she ever had in Guy's presence during their time together in the castle. "Poor Guy, so confused. Are you coming?"

At last, Guy reached out to take Marian's outstretched hand. "You're not taking me to Heaven?"

"Not yet."

"Huh?"

"There are some things you have to do first."

Guy gave up attempting to watch their surroundings as they spoke, since it was enough to make him motion sick – at least it would have been had his body seemed capable of feeling any sort of pain or discomfort. They were moving and not moving at the same time, as if they were standing on the outside of the planet as it turned serenely beneath them.

Marian opened a door that had seemed to come out of nowhere. "Go inside," she said.

"You're not coming? At least for a moment before you go for Robin?"

Guy had expected that Marian would say no, let go of his hand, and rush off to wherever she had to be to meet Robin. Or, impossibly, that she would linger for a few more minutes. Marian did neither. She looked up and to Guy's left as her face went blank. After moments, Marian's eyes focused on Guy's again. "Yes. I will go through this trial with you."

"Huh?"

"I think dying might have made you slightly more foolish, Guy of Gisborne," Marian said. She used the hand not already holding Guy's to pull his face down to hers and kissed him again.

"Do you choose me after all, then? And not Robin?"

Once again, Guy had expected Marian to push him through the door. He had expected her to panic, to say that they were wasting so much time simply standing outside this ordinary wood door in an ordinary stone archway talking. Instead, Marian was silent for a long moment. She threaded the fingers of her other hand through Guy's so they stood facing each other, holding hands. "I love Robin Hood," Marian said finally, her eyes never flickering from Guy's. "I married Robin Hood."

Guy waited for the jealousy, the rage. He painfully relived the moment he had stabbed Marian, several times over. He could feel the sword in his own side, and this body could feel pain, it hurt, it burned.

Marian did not let Guy remain lost in his memories. "I loved you less," she murmured. "But I loved you. I love you so much more now than I ever could when we were alive. Is that enough for you?"

"I don't understand."

"No. You won't, not yet."

"Do we need to get through that door? Shouldn't you be going to get Robin Hood and take him to whatever paradise awaits him?" A hint of sarcasm crept into Guy's voice. He felt both good and ashamed all at the same time.

"We can stay here as long as we need to. I told you, I'm coming with you. So," Marian let go of one of Guy's hands and used it to gesture toward the door, "shall we?"

On the other side was an ordinary castle kitchen on the other side of the door. But not Nottingham Castle. It was a larger kitchen. Strange, full of strange people, unfamiliar but strong smells, and loud voices. One of the servant girls raced directly toward the door Guy had just passed through, holding a steaming pot in each hand. She stomped on Guy's foot on her way through.

"Stop!" Guy bellowed.

The girl took no notice.

"She can't hear you," Marian said softly.

Well, that would make sense. A fly left its former circuit around the soup kettles on the fires and buzzed over to Guy's ear. He reached up to brush it away. It remained, circling.

"You can't touch it," Marian said, still softly.

One of the soup kettles boiled over. Two servant women ran to catch it, colliding with Guy on either side. Perhaps they couldn't feel it, but he could. He schooled his features to keep the wince away. "Marian, why are we here?"

"Take a closer look at the women here."

"The servants?"

"There's one you know."

Fine, Guy would humor her. Because Marian had said that she loved him, and because she stood at his side also enduring the flies and the smell and the noise. He would inspect the nameless faceless castle servants.

There was a small wail from the kitchen corner behind Guy, and a woman chopping vegetables on the far left of Guy's peripheral vision rushed over to tend to the child, stomping on Guy's other foot on the way over. Guy followed her. There was a baby in that corner, tucked into a makeshift cradle made out of what had to have been a stable box. The woman picked up the child and rocked it. She turned, and Guy caught his first clear glimpse of her face.

Annie.

Marian said, "That's why we're here, Guy. To get to know your son."

"That's not my son."

He had no children. If he ever had children – which he wouldn't now – but if he ever had children they wouldn't be servant bastards, they would be the children born of his and Marian's faithful healing union. This peasant baby had no place in Guy's life. "The servant girl's baby would be older."

"Time has no meaning now."

"I still don't believe you, but what do you want me to do?"

Marian sighed. She leaned her head against Guy's shoulder and whispered, "I do love you." Then, in her normal voice, she said, "Sit with him. Sing to him, maybe. He has people to attend him if he cries, but his mother cooks and cannot watch him while he sleeps.

"He won't hear me."

"You'd be surprised what babies perceive."

Maybe she was an angel, but she was still the most smug woman on the planet when she was right. Fine. Guy looked around the baby's makeshift crib for an equally makeshift seat. When absolutely nothing suitable presented itself, and only then he remembered he couldn't touch or move anything anyway, he settled on the floor cross-legged beside the noisy child. Annie had put it back in its crib, and it slept fitfully, turning back and forth at odd times.

Marian settled cross-legged beside him. "I'm not an angel, you know," Marian said.

"Can you read my mind now?" Somehow that seemed to Guy to be distinctly unfair, considering they were both dead but he'd heard nothing besides the confusing clamour of his own thoughts.

"No, but you never used to not want to kiss me. I wondered if you thought I was an angel and not a woman."

"Well, aren't you? An angel now?"

"No. People don't become angels. Angels are angels and people are people. But yeah, Guy, normally being here with you would be a job for your guardian angel."

"Then why…?" Why are you here? Why don't you hate me? Why am I not in hell? Why did I ever have a guardian angel? Why didn't that guardian angel stop … oh, everything, stop my mother from taking away my father and me from losing my life?

"Your guardian angel hasn't been on earth with you for years, Guy. There's so much evil in Nottingham that all the angels are wounded by now."

There was absolutely nothing Guy could say to that, so he didn't try. Perhaps he clutched Marian's hand a bit too tightly even for the way they were now, but Marian didn't complain.

After the smell of the kitchen trash, only a few feet to their right, became so bad that Guy found that he did have the capacity to feel nausea, he decided that perhaps he was atoning for a few of his sins. After the third too-close fly joined the cacophony of shrill kitchen gossip and stayed from high noon until almost sundown, Guy mentally made a tally mark next to a few of the peasants he'd killed on Vaisey's orders. When the baby cried and cried until Annie finally heard and rushed over to get it, and Guy looked over her plain peasant features, comparing them to his mentally burned picture of Marian, he decided that he'd gone to hell.

But then Marian, the real Marian, replaced the mental picture. In that gesture she was so fond of, she turned Guy's face to hers and said earnestly, "Guy. He's your son. And she was the woman you loved."

"She's a serving wench. She meant nothing to me. My land, my future children, my heart, they were all yours, Marian."

"But didn't you love her too?"

Annie rocked the baby, softly singing, not a traditional lullabye, but a song Guy had taught her. The words were in French.

The baby quieted. Annie remained standing by the crib, a hand on her son's head. Someone yelled from across the kitchen, "Annie get over here! You're late enough for two lashes already!" Terror flashed across Annie's face, then she schooled the expression, took her hand from her son's head, and walked quickly across the kitchen.

Guy bent to the child. He wasn't sleeping yet, and his face scrunched as if he might wail as he had done. Guy put his hand on the child's head, even though the child wouldn't feel it, and sang the same four lines as Annie had sung. His accent was perfect, and too vivid. Guy's face grew wet. He hoped Marian wouldn't notice, until he felt her small hand on his cheek, brushing the tears away.

Well after sundown, the fires burned out and the kitchen emptied.

"Did they have to work especially long tonight?" Guy asked.

Marian looked vaguely surprised. "You remember when Vaisey wanted his dinner. This is about how long it always takes them to clean up."

"Annie will just have time to sleep. Then she'll do it all over again."

"Yes," Marian said.

Guy snatched his hand out of Marian's for the first time that day. "Don't patronize me. Is that it? Am I ready to go to … wherever else it is I'm supposed to exist?" He didn't say hell.

"You're not finished," Marian said. "You're to spend time with your son."

"He's my bastard. Not my son."

"He's your son."

"Why must you be so insufferable?"

Once again – Guy had lost count – Marian's reaction was completely alien to Guy. She laughed and said, "Oh, Guy of Gisborne, why must you be so stubborn? Do you not remember hearing the verse," and she said in Latin something that Guy well remembered the translation: the last shall be first and the first shall be last.

"So I'm Annie's servant now?"

"You're her husband. At least you were."

Guy had lured many of the kitchen girls into his bed. Usually when Vaisey was otherwise occupied – primarily with the stable boys, although occasionally a housekeeping girl or two made it into Vaisey's rotation. And he'd used those particular girls because he didn't need to be kind to them. They were at the castle to give him whatever he needed.

That night Vaisey had been traveling. Good riddance too; Vaisey had forced Guy to kill far more peasants that day than usual, and their voices had rung in Guy's ear, and Guy had an absurd urge to go find his mother and get her to tell him everything would be okay. It had been Annie that night. As she rose to leave, Guy reached out and took her hand and told her to stay the night. He told her he needed her to sing to him, to reassure him. When Annie did sing, Guy told her that he loved her and thought she was special and would take care of her and provide for her.

"I would never have married her."

Marian gave that cryptic smile, looking into Guy's eyes in such a way that he found it hard to believe that she didn't have access to his thoughts. "Think about how you felt about her. Didn't you? Weren't you married at least for a moment?"

Guy didn't want to talk about it anymore. He felt tired. It was such an odd thing, rediscovering all the same feelings he had in life and the different ways they manifested themselves in his new body. "If we're not leaving, where do we sleep?"

"Servant's quarters, of course. Follow me."

"This is hell and I'm in it," Guy muttered, obediently walking alongside Marian.

Marian elbowed him in the ribs.

Guy stretched out on the least-bug-ridden empty pallet in the large room. Even if he'd been alive he wouldn't have been able to sleep here; as it was with the way that tiredness still felt so removed, loss of consciousness was not a luxury he would have … maybe ever again.

Marian shoved at Guy with her foot. "Scoot over, fool," she said, stretching out beside him, curling slightly so Guy was on the outside with his hand draped across Marian's stomach, her hair beneath his chin.

"Won't those white robes of yours get dirty?"

That made Marian laugh, and pressed up next to Guy as she was, that made Guy laugh, and they were still laughing when sleep did take Guy like a warm blanket.

The days fell into a routine. Guy quickly lost count, and he supposed this must be the way that the world worked for those in the servant class – days so alike to each other that there was no difference. If there had been any significant change in the weather outside, Guy would not have known from inside the kitchen. The fires had the same heat, the garbage gave off the same foul smell, and there was the same dirt, commotion, and bruising.

Guy noticed little things about Annie. The way she held her hands over her baby son. Those same hands had done, um, other things to Guy. Annie had always been different from the others because she treated Guy as if he was different. He wasn't just a faceless noble she served, he was a person. It had been so refreshing after Vaisey's constant beration. And it was still refreshing, the way Annie looked at her son. The tiny things she said to the others as she flitted back and forth – perhaps not the same level of intelligent conversation as Marian's, but uniquely Annie's and endearing for that reason.

At first Guy simply wished to get the particular torment of life as a servant far behind him. But as time went on and he grew accustomed to the constant discomforts, he began to wish to prolong the torment instead. It was a torment with Marian by his side, sharing his discomfort, randomly and unexpectedly treating him to small gems of her real thoughts – things she'd never dared to share in life. It was a torment with Marian sharing his bed. Guy didn't understand how he could be so close and so far from Marian all at the same time, for he was not aware of her as a woman only as a kind of battle brother, but he had never felt so close to another human being in his life. He grew more in love with her with each passing hour, and he did not want to move on to the phase where she would go back to Heaven and he would go to hell.

"You're not going to go to hell, you know," Marian said one afternoon.

"Stop reading my mind!" It had become a kind of joke between them by this point.

"You sing to the baby like you're filling out battle plans for Vaisey, and Seth will remember you, but that's not your job anyway." It was the first time either of them had said the baby's name. Even Annie didn't say it often; she preferred pet names and other baby talk. "You care for him like you're trying to keep yourself out of hell."

"Aren't I?"

Marian curled against Guy, casually putting her head on his shoulder like she did on so many afternoons, and was silent for a long while. "Guy, the church treats Heaven like a prize to be earned. It's not. There was a room for you in Heaven before you were even born. You're just not ready to see it yet."

"Why?" Why was there a room in the first place, why wasn't it given to someone more worthy long ago, why isn't all the blood on my hands either sending me to damnation or going away so it doesn't torment me anymore…

"Well, first you haven't acknowledged that peasants are people too," Marian said, in the same tone she might have said, 'you haven't learned to buckle your armor.'

"Why does that matter?"

"One day in Heaven you'll sit at your son's feet and listen to him teach you."

Guy looked at the baby in the makeshift crib, caught halfway between a smile and an outburst of tears. Seth opened his eyes and, for one moment, stared directly into his father's with recognition.

"He has my eyes," Guy said softly. "My eyes, and his mother's hands."

"He does," Marian said, and there were layers and layers of meaning in those few words. She walked up beside Guy, slipping her hand into his as they stared into the cradle. "And we can go on now."

"Wait."

"Why?"

Guy was absurdly grateful that Marian hadn't again launched into her spiel about the way that they weren't avoiding hell. "Annie. I want to make sure she's taken care of."

"What do you have in mind?" Marian's voice was light, teasing.

He'd missed that so much. "You know the stable kid who popped into the kitchen a few times looking for scraps for the barn cats? The one with the buck teeth and lisp?"

"Yes?" Marian said dryly.

"I think Annie likes him."

"That would be my conclusion as well."

Guy elbowed Marian. "Well? What do we do about it?"

Marian looked up and away, her eyes blank. "We can't touch anything," she said, "but we can whisper suggestions. You suggest that Annie take Seth to pet the stable kitties on the way back to the servant's quarters, and I'll go suggest that Melvin stay late.

"His name is Melvin?"

Marian didn't deign to answer that, just flitted away, running in the direction of the stables. It was the first time Guy and Marian had been separated since Guy had died.

The first time. Robin must have survived after all. There's no way Marian would stay with Guy for this long if she had Robin to take care of.

The thought sent an odd ache through Guy's stomach. It was even more complicated by the fact that he was giving this woman, Annie, who he had indeed loved, to a peasant with buck teeth and the most idiotic name on the planet.

Not a peasant. A man. Who would love Annie and take care of her.

Shut up, Gisborne, Guy thought. You have a job to do.

Guy's part of the task turned out to be easier than he had thought, however. Seth had grown used to his father's faint voice, responding, calming, even occasionally stretching his hand in Guy's direction. Rather than suggest anything to Annie, Guy bent over Seth and told him stories of barn cats until Annie came to collect him. Seth babbled a little although not coherently – Guy had been present for Seth's first word – and so when Annie picked him up, Seth said brightly, "Cat!"

"Barn cats through the kitchen all day, I know."

"Cat! See cat!" Seth sounded absurdly proud of himself for two coherent words in a row.

"Fine," Annie said. The weariness in her voice broke Guy's heart all over again.

It was worth it, however, to see Annie's encounter with Melvin in the stables, the few awkward moments of attempted conversation before the even more awkward kisses and promises to run away together fading to promises to stay together forever here. Stable boys could marry kitchen maids and no one would think worse of any of them. The nobles in this castle did not seem to demand to share – at least, Guy had seen no kitchen maids summoned to nobles' beds in all the time they'd been there. Annie would be all right.

Guy walked with Marian along the same now-familiar stone hall, which darkened as they went. There was a door at the end, the door of a dungeon – a familiar dungeon this time, Nottingham's dungeon. He moved to open the door, but Marian put her hand in front of Guy's.

"Wait."

"What for?"

It was only a few moments later when an armor clad warrior pounded along the stone hallway. "Sorry…late…battle down at village."

"Quite all right," Marian said gently. "We only arrived ourselves."

"He's there?"

"Yes."

All three stopped, and there was a long silence.

Marian turned to Guy, turning his face to hers in what had become her trademark gesture. "Guy," she said. "This is Zyor. He's an angel. He's going to take Lambert away."

"Lambert died…oh," Guy said, remembering what Marian had said about time and deciding not to sound quite as stupid around her in the future. "Good."

"You won't like the rest of this. Guy, it's still two days before Vaisey will order Lambert's death. You need to take his place."

"Go on," Guy said, not understanding anything but still not wanting to appear quite so foolish in front of Marian.

"When they look at you, they'll see Lambert. They won't see or hear me. They're going to torture you, Guy. But Lambert doesn't deserve to endure it, and you need to know how it feels."

Guy had never been so grateful for all his years of training in schooling his emotions. Besides, what Marian was saying did make sense. Perhaps the screams of all the people he had ordered tortured – which had never stopped bothering him entirely, no matter how hard he tried to follow Vaisey's advice and put it all out of his mind – perhaps those screams would quiet if the victims knew that Guy understood their pain. It wasn't as if Vaisey had never ordered Guy to be beaten before. Vaisey had once looked the other way as Guy was nearly drowned to death. The physical pain would be nothing.

Lambert was quietly happy to see Zyor. "This means I'm dead, right?"

"Not yet," Zyor said in that expressionless authoritative tone that Guy knew he'd have to get used to. "But they're going to kill you. We're taking you away before they can beat you too badly first. Guy will take your place."

Lambert's eyes focused on Guy, and on Marian behind him. "I underestimated you, Guy. You are a true friend."

Guy fought to stay stoic as Lambert threw his arms around Guy's shoulders. I'm not a true friend. I abandoned you. I tried to save you but I was too late. I don't deserve your love, not in this life and not in the one I guess we will both inhabit.

"Ready to go, Lambert?" said Zyor. "We have to move. They're coming."

"Ready as I'll ever be," Lambert said, and he squared his shoulders, took the angel's hand, and walked back through the hallway. Proud. He died proud.

Guy felt the unpleasant sensation of chains around his shoulders. Again not for the first time.

Marian squeezed his hand.

"Hey," Guy whispered, more gently than he could remember up to this point. Marian had been the sometimes-insufferable beautiful maiden of the next world, not a vulnerable girl in need of reassurance, and definitely never a vulnerable girl in need of reassurance because of something that would happen to Guy. "I've been tortured before, you know."

"I didn't know," she said tonelessly. "I'm sorry."

"I chose him," Guy said. "Vaisey. I chose power. Torture is the price of power."

"It shouldn't be," Marian said.

There was no time to say anything more as three familiar faces burst into the room. Vaisey and the other Guy stayed only for a little while, long enough to ask a few times – and not even very creatively – "Where is the ledger?" Guy, of course, couldn't tell them since he didn't know. Then they left, and Guy was alone with the familiar face of the torturer in Guy's employ. "Where shall we start?" the horrid little man said, then casually drew a hot poker out of the fire.

Guy's new body felt things in a different sort of way than the old one had. When everything was normal, he felt as if there was no way he could ever feel pain or discomfort – the sense of contentment was absolute enough to override fear. But when either pain or joy screamed loudly enough to overpower the status quo, Guy's new body amplified it a thousand times. He could literally feel every nerve ending burning and winking out as the poker was used on his back and arms. When the torturer slowly broke Guy's legs, every millisecond crack sent hours of pain screeching up and down Guy's brain. He thought it would never end.

But finally it did, and Guy was tossed unceremoniously into a new wet and dirty cell, thrown to the floor as his legs gave way under him, and chained to the wall. And then he was alone with Marian.

"Guy?"

He didn't trust his voice. Wordlessly, he shook his head, willing the tremors to stop, willing the residual fire to leave his brain, willing … willing himself not to break down in front of Marian.

Marian had tears in her eyes. "Guy, please say something. That was … something I've never seen."

Guy still couldn't speak, but he met Marian's eyes.

She knelt in front of him, not touching him but in a position such that she could reach out and wrap her arms around him even around the chains. "I made a man be tortured to death once. Remember? When I told Robin a secret and you thought your man at arms had done it. His death was my fault. It was torture, but if that was what it was like …" Marian buried her face in her hands.

Guy's arms were chained to the wall so he couldn't touch her even if he'd been in any state to offer comfort. So he just sat there, convinced that he was trapped in hell after all and trying not to imagine Marian telling him that he thought about hell way too much.

Marian eventually looked up. "I'm sorry." She scrunched her face, warring for control. "Please, please say something. Are you all right?"

Guy didn't mention that was an absurd question. He didn't want to do battle with Marian. He wanted … he wanted … pain swam through his limbs as images of Vaisey walking away from the drowning Guy without a second thought danced in front of his eyes.

Marian reached out to touch Guy's face, turning it toward hers.

Guy started to shake. And finally, then, to cry, all the pain of the last few hours and the lifetime of arrogance and betrayal pouring through him as if he was only the opened dam over a raging river. Marian wrapped her arms around his waist, put her head below his, and held on.

The emotional pain seemed to last longer than the physical pain had, but eventually Guy stopped shaking and crying, each around the same time, and Marian loosened her grip and eventually moved over to sit beside him. One of Marian's hands reached up to clasp Guy's, his arms loosely hanging from the chains that supported him at the shoulders.

"I think the worst is over," Marian whispered.

Just then, the door opened and Robin came in.

Had Guy been in control of what was said, he would have given himself away in a heartbeat. But Lambert's voice answered Robin, Lambert agreed to Robin's plan.

You fool, Guy said silently. If Lambert doesn't know where the ledger is, Vaisey will kill him. I could have told you that when I was eleven. But Robin is noble. Robin is an idiot.

"Foolish man," Marian murmured. She reached out to Robin with the hand not clasping Guy's.

Robin stopped talking mid-sentence and looked over at the place where Marian was.

Marian hastily dropped her hand, looking down and away from Robin.

Robin resumed giving Lambert the plan.

When he was gone, Guy said conversationally, "If this was the intelligence of the other side, I'm insulted that my former side lost." He meant it as a joke.

Marian yanked her hand away from Guy's and stalked to the other side of the cell. She didn't leave, and Guy was pathetically grateful for that, since there was nothing he could do to bring her back, or deserve her to come back. Marian paced a few times, then turned back to face Guy. "There are lines good can't cross, Guy," she said. "Evil doesn't have that restraint."

"I switched sides in the end, Marian."

"You said it was to beat Isabella." She looked at him with a ghost of the old humor in her eyes. "Yes, I was watching you. It was so much easier when you and Robin got together, that way I didn't have to go dashing between the forest and the castle all the time."

Guy should have been insulted by that, but he was only amused. And warmed, even in a cell as freezing as his cell was with his body ready to die from wounds alone. "I lied," Guy said. "Surely you must know me well enough by now to recognize that."

"True that," Marian said, and she walked back across the cell to resume her former place at Guy's side, holding his hand. "It won't be long now."

It wasn't long in terms of time. Vaisey came in. Guy heard Lambert's mouth utter the idiocy regarding Robin saying that Vaisey wouldn't torture Lambert if Lambert didn't know about the ledger. Time froze and moved backwards as Vaisey put his hand over Lambert's mouth and then hit his already broken legs, then stopped short when Vaisey killed Lambert. Finally with a pop, time started again, and this time it really was over.

The emotional fallout was less physically painful, but otherwise more intense. Guy found himself absurdly glancing up at moments when he could see anything, trying to ascertain that at least only Marian saw his weakness.

"There's no such thing as weakness here, Guy," Marian said softly, rubbing his now-whole back and holding him tightly.

"Get out of my head." And they laughed, a little.

There was an unfamiliar door at the end of the passageway again. It was also more … menacing … was the only way Guy could describe it. Like a door guarding a cliff in an underground mountain.

"That's not the way to Heaven, is it?"

Marian elbowed Guy in the ribs. "It'd be a pretty scary Heaven. No, we're actually in hell." She glanced at Guy and blanched. "Not to stay! We're just visiting. Your last job is to talk to Vaisey."

"Oh, so Robin took him out! Good for Robin." Guy said, not even giving a second thought to the incongruity of cheering his former enemy slash biggest rival. "Wait. Vaisey is in hell."

"Right."

"No big surprise. What exactly am I supposed to talk to him about?"

"You're supposed to offer him a chance to go to Heaven."

"Screw that."

"He won't take it, Guy. No one ever does.

"Out of all the things you've told me that make no sense, this one is the absolute worst. I'm out of here." Guy turned, trying to take Marian with him, but Marian yanked her hand out of his.

"Guy. Is your pride worth your eternal future?"

Guy turned around. "What are you talking about?"

"Right now there's no way out for us. Zyor … or someone, anyway … will come get us when we're done, but not if you refuse your job."

"To offer that snake a chance to bite our heels and hold on forever. I'd rather stay. Can Zyor get you out?"

"Yes, but …" For the third time, Marian looked up and let her face go blank. After a few moments she said, "You don't understand. The cells in hell are barred from the inside. It's people like Vaisey, people who are too proud to admit that using people as pawns to be crushed never satisfies, that humility is essential, that weakness is essential, who bar themselves into their own jail cells and stay there for eternity. Someone needs to offer Vaisey one last chance. And it has to be you because this is something you need to do."

"He won't take it?"

Marian smiled. "The first person ever to change his mind about power and God after dying is not going to be Vaisey, Sheriff of Nottingham, who once insisted you and I kiss in a carriage just for his amusement."

"All right." Guy tried the door. It wouldn't move. He stated the obvious. "It's locked."

"Yes. From the inside."

"Then what do I do?"

"Knock."

Guy knocked.

"Go away!"

Guy knocked harder.

A face appeared at the grate above the door, in the weird position only of someone straining to lift himself up to the bars. "Oh. What do you want?"

Guy looked back at Marian, who was in the passage outside of Vaisey's line of sight. Guy mouthed, "I don't think I can do this."

Marian whispered, "Tell him he can leave."

"You want to get out of here?" Guy shouted.

"You can't leave!" Vaisey shrieked. "You're the same as me! The same as me! And I bet your woman is here too! All this for a woman."

Guy felt the flash of anger, but it wasn't nearly as hot and unmanageable as it had been in life. "I can leave. And you can too if you unbar that door."

"Lies! You're not here at all, you're here somewhere but not right there in front of me. You're just a stinking hallucination."

"Can we go now?" Guy said to Marian.

"I think that would be a very good idea," Marian said, and, hand in hand, they walked back up the corridor with Vaisey's ever-more-hysterical cursing chasing them.

"How on earth does he go on like that without a break?" Marian said when they were far enough away that Vaisey wouldn't hear.

"Breath control," Guy answered with a perfectly straight face. "He's very good at it."

The dark hallway seemed to lighten a bit, and the face of an angel Guy didn't recognize came into view for just a second. Then they were walking in a forest instead.

"Guy … I loved my father very much, and he was very important to me. Is important to me, he's taught me so much now. How do you deal with having … that … those tantrums, as your only guide?"

"He wasn't my only guide," Guy said. He couldn't meet Marian's eyes as he said the rest, "I had you."

Marian clasped his hand more tightly and leaned against him as they walked.

Robin was at the end of the path, surrounded by the men and woman Guy had spent so much time with in the forest. He had his arms around Much, saying, "You're my best friend."

Guy decided that he wanted to prove to Marian that he was smarter in this life than the last. So rather than sputtering something incoherent about Robin being alive or dead or poisoned or in old age, Guy calmly asked Marian, "How long has it been since I died?"

"Not long," Marian said. "From the beginning of sunset to true sunset, that's all."

Guy assimilated this, carefully keeping any sort of stupid expression from his face.

Marian reached up to kiss Guy, warmly and briefly, still without any kind of passion. Guy found that he rather liked feeling so close to the woman he loved without the other physical pressures. "Now I have to go," Marian said. "Heaven is that way," and she pointed to something that looked like an ordinary path through the trees. "Your parents mended their fences ages ago and they're waiting for you, and so is a very pretty young girl who's been asking for months when you were going to arrive."

"Do you have to guide Robin for months?"

Marian smiled vaguely. "None of your business," she said, pouting for a moment just for him. "Besides. I want some alone time with Robin. He'll be asking for you soon enough."

"Fine. Be that way."

"I will," and Marian's smile was enough to make the sunset recede into nothing. "Now go! I'll see you later. I love you."

Guy looked to Robin, who had finished his goodbyes and was stumbling deliberately into the forest, to Much, who was weeping quietly without attracting any attention, back to Marian, who was casting a look toward Robin that she'd never used for Guy. But that was okay. All was as it should be. "I love you," Guy said, holding up a hand in blessing toward Marian. Then he turned away from her and walked with quick, deliberate strides down the forest path.

_The mansion on the hill, it may be ready for me now_

_But don't give me the keys until it's time_

_You know me, I'd probably just lose them anyhow_

_Would You just let me in when I arrive?_

—This Train, "Goodbye"


End file.
